Here’s What Happened When I Told Fox News I Wanted to Talk about Climate Change

From the editors and reporters of Scientific American , this blog delivers commentary, opinion and analysis on the latest developments in science and technology and their influence on society and policy. From reasoned arguments and cultural critiques to personal and skeptical takes on interesting science news, you'll find a wide range of scientifically relevant insights here. Follow on Twitter @sciam.

Two days ago a producer for Fox & Friends contacted Scientific American’s media person about doing a segment along the lines of “Crystal ball: What will science and technology bring over the next 50 years?” Apparently they had seen the recent Pew poll about whether Americans believed that far-out technologies such as teleporters were going to exist by the year 2064. The show wanted someone to come on and give some TRUE/FALSE verdicts.

I agreed to do the spot, but I said that it’s a fool’s game to guess at what technologies are going to exist in a half-century. Instead I could do a “trends for the future” in science. They said OK. A 50-year-timescale is pretty far out. About the only interesting thing that the scientific community is sure will happen in the next 50 years is that climate change is going to get worse, and that we’re going to have to deal with the impacts. So I put that as one of my talking points.

I understood that there was little chance the topic would make it into the show, but I’m not going to self-censor myself from the get-go. I also included as talking points some topics that we have recently covered in the magazine: robot drivers, gene therapy and rocket technology. The Fox producer came back and very politely and matter-of-factly said that we would have to replace the climate change item.* So I included a talking point about how we were poised to soon discover more Earth-like planets. This all happened yesterday, well in advance of my appearance on the show.

To be honest I’m surprised this is garnering as much interest as it seems to be. A recent study examined the accuracy of cable news programs regarding climate science. The study concluded that “in general, Fox hosts and guests were more likely than those of other networks to disparage the study of climate science and criticize scientists.” We all understand that Fox comes with a political point of view, one which has served them well in the ratings hunt.

I did go on the show to discuss the other topics, because they are genuinely interesting and I love to share cool science with whomever will listen. I thought the segment itself went well. Unfortunately Fox appears to have removed the video from its website.

UPDATE: The website The Raw Story has a copy of the video, in case you’re interested.

UPDATE 2: The specific language used was “can we replace the climate change with something else?”

About the Author: Michael Moyer is the editor in charge of space and physics coverage at Scientific American. Follow on Twitter @mmoyr.

You can’t expect much from a company who appeals to the folks on the lower half of the IQ scale. Fox is trying to sell advertisements to companies that make products that appeal to these robo-sheep. Judging by the amount of BS they sell, I would say it’s a win win strategy for Fox.

To be clear, Fox and Friends is “the nation’s number-one-rated *cable* morning show”. ABC, NBC, and CBS have audiences many times larger for their morning shows. (approx 5.7M viewers watch ABC compared to 1.2M for Fox.)

I have never written in to Sci Am before, but when I read on Daily Kos that you went on the show and agreed to talk about the future of our planet without mentioning climate change I was shocked. It is the ethical responsibility of every scientist and indeed every educated person to sound the alarm as to what we are doing to our planet. Instead you assisted them in covering up the greatest issue facing the species. You should have just told them that you would not appear on their show. Sci Am gets a black eye on this I’m afraid..

Human-caused climate change is well established science and has been for many years. We’ve been using the atmosphere as if it were an endless waste disposal site. The consequences are becoming more and more evident.

More of us need to get active. Join the efforts to change course. Our future generations are at risk. Apathy/inaction effectively advocates more of the same destructive behaviors.

Because when fully thought through it explains very well why the rest of the world thinks what it thinks of the US (and its Fox-backed gun culture). And no, I don’t see how one could see the US differently as this is exactly how they are (perceived worldwide) by numbers.

If you want to talk about something, and someone says “lets talk about something else instead”, you have two choices:
- agree, and politely indulge in discussion that may not be your preference, or
- disagree, and don’t go on the show.

Self-indulgent narcissistic snark AFTER the show – particularly going after the makeup girl, really? – suggests more about cowardice than the inherent moral righteousness of whatever point you were trying to make.

Disappointing but entirely unsurprising. I canceled my SciAm subscription a couple of decades ago when politics became evidently more important there than science. I much prefer the objective rigor of Science News.

I find it interesting that Mike went on Fox & Friends (obviously to promote himself) and “the segment itself went well” (his words, not mine) but then as soon as let the set began posting negative tweets about the experience including making fun of the makeup girl (way to stay classy Mike). And apparently Mike and his wife (according to their tweets)aren’t bright enough to understand a joke when they hear one. What? A science writer without a sense of humor? Say it ain’t so? It’s also interesting at how the trolls came out to bash Fox this morning when it appears that it’s Mike that’s the two-faced coward. I especially love the one who talks about how it’s Fox that caused the rest of the world to think less of the US – gosh you don’t think it has anything to do with our coward of a President do you?

The editorial commentary on SciAm is pushing me away from the publication. My family has been involved in high tech for years including the space program and nuclear physics research. Hardly on the lower half of the IQ scale thank you. I enjoy a majority of the articles, but I may drop the subscription due to the editors.

Re: “A 50-year-timescale is pretty far out. About the only interesting thing that the scientific community is sure will happen in the next 50 years is that climate change is going to get worse…”

It seems to me, those in the profession have a difficult enough job simply providing an accurate forecast of the local weather for more than 5 days into the future. Yet, those in climate forecasting, a far more complex activity, are somehow able to project 50 years into the future. It would be interesting to know how this is accomplished.

It is disingenuous for Moyer to say that he wasn’t allowed to talk about climate change. When he was contacted by Fox they told him upright that it was a segment about scientific trends, not about climate change. He knew how the discussion would be focused. If he was disillusioned by this, then it his own fault for not asking more questions about the segment. However, this was not the time or the place to discuss climate change. It wasn’t the point. Fox has had many segments and many pro-climate change scientists on their shows. It has not been a one-sided debate.
What I find terribly sad, but very indicative, of many of the science field, is that after the segment he came out and bashed the people personally. The very show which gave him a platform to promote himself and his magazine. And then for his wife to get involved…odd.
Mike, please learn to take a joke. You really seemed okay with it at the time, but then to mock the football comment (which was so obviously a joke)was just petty.
If you feel you need to shower after the show, you probably do. I can say this for sure, I’ve met your wife, she definitely needs to shower. A lot. Use soap this time.

You did not garner interest because of your topics. You’re obviously trying to make your actions into some kind of censorship issue The “interest” (aka criticism) is because you went on the show, had a discussion with people who were friendly and joked around with you, then trashed them on twitter as soon as you left – it had NOTHING to do with the topics discussed. If you had such a problem with Fox, the hosts, or the producers, you shouldn’t have gone on the show. #classless #hypocrite.

I am simply amazed by all of this. First of all did any of the people commenting on this blog post actually watch Fox and Friends? I did!!! Which according to everyone here must mean that I’m on the lower end of the IQ Scale, knuckle dragging Neanderthal.

My only issue with Mr. Moyer was the booger flicking tweets that he publicized moments after his segment was completed. Somehow he felt so dirty by appearing on Fox and Friends that he desired a shower? Then he or his mom took out a stick with a pointy end and jabbed at Brian Kilmeade’s comment asking if we will discover a planet that has football. An obvious joke and in the spirit of lightheartedness.

I think we are getting very saturated with the whole climate change thing. The average temperature has risen 1.5 degrees(F) and .85 degrees(C) in the past 100 years.

You have managed one thing Mr. Moyer. You got people to log into this website. Now I’ll never subscribe to or read your magazine…but you got some hits. Way to go!!!

I feel what FOX wanted was to somehow seem scientifically legitimate and “connected” to science. Anyone who checks our Media Matters or even watches FOX News knows how terribly slanted their view of my reality is. But in all seriousness, FOX has an unstated marketing and PR mission – to convince people that Conservatives are good and to keep our heads in the sand. It really is just that simple.

You said, “I think we are getting very saturated with the whole climate change thing. The average temperature has risen 1.5 degrees(F) and .85 degrees(C) in the past 100 years.”

Do you know that this rate of warming is 40 TIMES FASTER than the natural climate change that brought us out of the last “Ice Age”? Do you make a habit of ignoring the world’s scientists and every, singe scientific organization on the planet? Or do you just deny the mountain of evidence supporting climate change?

I am surprised at some of the comments made here by a few individuals who should know better. So much negativity in some of the comments. Of course FOX News has an agenda but then again so does MSNBC. Doesn’t everyone in the end have an agenda? Of course they do. A business has an agenda which is to make money. A power plant has an agenda and that is to produce electricity at a profit. To me that’s just the way society works. That’s why we have liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Independents and Democrats. Its part of what makes America great.

I thought Michael did a wonderful job and the exchanges were about as good as you are ever going to get from Talk Show hosts on ANY network.

O.K. so about two weeks ago I celebrated my 74th birthday. During my lifetime I have witnessed first hand the transition of our society from one that had cheap fossil fuels to a society which is finding that it will sooner or later need to constrain itself. I don’t really have a name for this transition of our society so I guess Climate Change and Global Warming [CCGW] will have to do. But if you ask me and no one is of course; both terms are “problem statements” and not some set of “goals and objectives” we would like our society to try and achieve. The terms GW & CC are terms associated with an area of scientific study. It is not something the average American understands. Just go ask your neighbor to explain what the definition of “ppm” is or ask them what would happen to our weather patterns if the 400 ppm of CO2 concentrations fell to 200 ppm. We are using scientific studies and reports created by individuals with Masters and Doctorate degrees written for grade levels 16-18 and trying to motivate people with 10-12 grade education. Good grief; most Americans can’t even identify who their Vice President is. And most don’t even know who their Mayor is and we want them to get all excited and jump up and down and support some scientific consensus opinion. You are joking right?

Just how much progress have we made when it comes to GWCC in say the last 10 years? Heck, we have created armies and fought wars in less time than that without even breaking a sweat. Something is seriously wrong with our strategy don’t you think?

Maybe we haven’t made much progress because the people haven’t really rallied around the scientific data. What is so hard to understand – don’t people believe the scientific data? My response is; what makes you think they would believe a group of scientist when they don’t even understand what they are saying. What have we done to explain to the average American what they can personally do to control and/or reduce the amount of CO2 in the air.

The average American gets up in the morning, turns on the lights, showers, shaves and heads off to work in a vehicle most likely fueled by gasoline or a few diesels and maybe a few more hybrids or electric vehicles. Most people work hard, come home from work, go grocery shopping, go to little league practice, maybe a dental appointment and watch maybe 2 to 4 hours of sitcoms or reality TV and then off to bed. That is pretty much life in America. See anything in the time slot about GWCC? Not much on the channels I watch. Oh and the State of the Union speeches we have heard for the last 15 years or so – more or less about the “politics of the day” than about what goals and objectives America needs to achieve to preserve our way of life and the planet we will pass on to the next generation.

For most Americans there is no time to study the effects or even the meaning of 400 ppm of CO2 on a mountaintop in Hawaii. They either don’t have the time, the knowledge, the skills or ability to understand NOR DO THEY feel empowered to do anything about it. That to me is the missing link we must fix. We must begin to provide GOALS and OBJECTIVES for the people if we ever plan to make significant progress. You know something the people feel they can do something about.

We need to start thinking about HOW we can achieve small incremental steps in America. We can maybe start by having the typical American understand what happens when they take a 30 minute shower instead of a 10 minute one. Or leave the lights during the daytime or all night. Or maybe we can get every CEO in every company in America to direct their workforce to start looking for ways to save energy. In short we need to:

“Think about what we can do the improve the quality of the air we breath and the water we drink”. Most likely everything else would sooner or later fall into place.

“Do you know that this rate of warming is 40 TIMES FASTER than the natural climate change that brought us out of the last “Ice Age”? Do you make a habit of ignoring the world’s scientists and every, singe scientific organization on the planet? Or do you just deny the mountain of evidence supporting climate change?”

Yer a dumbass. I don’t need the worlds scientists to tell me that we DRIVE MORE CARS, POLLUTE MORE LAKES RIVERS AND OCEANS, PUT MORE TOXINS IN THE AIR, FLY MORE AIRPLANES. The trend hasn’t been a strait arrow pointing UP. It has been a fluctuating movement of our earths AVERAGE TEMPERATURE. Over the last 100 years, the difference is about a degree. (40 Times FASTER than the last ice age????) REALLY???? The Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles were fast and abrupt and showed a direct downward trend in the earths temperatures. Dude…the “AVERAGE TEMP OF THE EARTH HAS GONE UP ABOUT A DEGREE IN 100 YEARS!!!!”

However, for the sake of your argument and Al Gore’s carbon footprint. Let’s say that we are spinning out of control based upon climate change. Besides rallying behind another teleprompter driven speech by Obama, what is YOUR plan?

You going to get China to stop building? You going to get oil producing countries to stop drilling? Hey brains…why don’t we stop raising and producing livestock to feed people because cow farts destroy the ozone layer. No more fertilizer to keep our produce safe because it destroys ozone. You going to shake your fist at the rising sea levels? While you’re at it, how about cussing mother nature for all the hurricanes and typhoons. Then stage a protest down in the Central and South American country’s and tell them to stop cutting down trees and forests.

By the way…we have MORE PEOPLE, MORE INDUSTRY, MORE TRAVEL, MORE TRADE/COMMERCE and more selfish people than ever before.

What are you giving up to do your part in reducing the effects of GHG? Did you sell your car and start riding a bike to work from moms basement? HEY..Let’s throw another hollywood fund raiser and fly celebrities in from all over the world to lecture us about the devastating effects of global warming.

So climb up to the top of that mountain of evidence and shout to anyone who can hear you. What are you going to do except talk about it? What changes can this world make to fix the earth. Talk-Talk-Talk-Talk-WURDZ-WURDZ-WURDZ!!!

Gosh I remember when it was called “Global Warming” but that analysis didn’t pan out so they had to call it something else that the sheeple (read:liberal) could grasp so now they call it “Climate Change” and people applaud. Wait – isn’t climate cyclical? Doesn’t cyclical imply change? Does Kool-Ade get warmer with climate change?

Thank Michael for telling us about your experience. Scientific American was my favorite publication in High School and one of the few subscriptions I’ve ever looked forward to getting each month. I’m going to renew my subscription today, and I look forward to reading your editorial work in action. Science can change the world as we know it and that can be threatening to some people. It has often been the case that those whose work threatens the status quo are often vilified but later celebrated. Keep up the good work. You give me Faith in humanity.

It is the duty of any scientist or scientific community to constantly challenge any scientific principle that is in question, especially one as important as the earth’s climate. To unilaterally proclaim that global warming, or the meaningless term “climate change” cannot be disagreed with is the antithesis of what science is all about.

So let me paraphrase your comments: “Michael, I support you 100% even though you’ve been proven to be two-faced and judgmental of other people’s (non-science related) beliefs so keep up your lack of class and don’t worry there are other judgmental, classless people out here who support your two-faced efforts.” Is that about it Jean? Nice.

You STILL have presented ZERO proof to back up your accusations concerning Media Matters. You can type whatever you want, but until you provide links to hard evidence, nobody is going to believe you.

For example, is there some story that Media Matters reported on that was false? That would still only be one anecdote and not conclusive proof, so you would have to find evidence of a consistent track record of bias. As of right now, all you have presented is a bunch of ad hominem attacks without any evidence or any real logical argument to make your case.

Rather than making a POLITICAL attack on Fox why not write some facts to support the failed premise of AGW.

Has there been a average warming of the planet since the last ice age – surely there has been – the Hockey stick theory was fabricated on a gamed data set . . the data or the test times and sample areas included in the peer review papers.

Without base data how can one even do a peer review? Maybe that is why the Warming backers had to publish their own journals because the real Scientific Journals require data before they will let the papers advance to GRANT APPLICATION STATUS.

The Computer modeling systems all failed 100% of the time making the same erroneous predictions of dire doom and destruction. None of which came to reality. Hence now warming causes massive ice layers on the Great Lakes and in certain other ice masses. It must be caused by CLIMATE CHANGE.

Come on Grant Scientists – come up with one just one fully peer reviewed paper that was sent with all the base data and details so that others could prove or disprove the paper.

Thanks for the vapid personal attack against me since it really just reinforces how weak your arguments are. Just how weak, you ask? Dansgaard-Oeschger events have only been measured on REGIONAL scales while global warming is…duh, GLOBAL.

As for solutions, yes I do ride my bike to work as much as possible and I keep my electric bill low with CFL lighting and other efficiency / conservation measures. I live in California and the cap-and-trade mechanism the state set up to reduce CO2 emissions returns most of the proceeds from the sale of carbon credits back to utility customers. I received the “California Climate Credit” and it cancelled out a month and a half of my electricity bills! And before you go making up your own “facts”, you must know that electricity rates DID NOT GO UP due to the cap and trade mechanism. Imagine that, we can fight climate change and put more money in our pockets.

Going further, we need stricter pollution controls on power plants and other polluting facilities. Right now, coal pollution alone causes $150B – $500B in yearly damages to the U.S. Economy:

Imagine if we forced the polluters to clean up their act so they couldn’t get away with dumping their waste all over the place and facing zero consequences for it like they do now. Even more money in your pocket in the form of reduced healthcare spending and higher economic growth/ Plus, millions of people would live longer and healthier lives to boot!

There are plenty of common sense solutions out there. We aren’t taking them because fossil fuels are a multi-trillion-dollar industry and the companies involved are some of the biggest spenders when it comes to hiring lobbyists, paying people to spread their propaganda on the internet and in the media, and just outright buying elections through shady campaign spending.

Five hundred million years ago we had CO2 levels approaching 5,000ppm. We currently have less than 400 ppm. What ten times our current CO2 levels caused was giant plants creating an abundance of oxygen which supported giant critters. The oceans failed to turn acidic (they sit in basalt basins.) It was a very prosperous time for life on the planet. After 50 million years of CO2 levels of 5,000ppm the planet entered an ice age lasting millions of years. The high CO2 levels did not keep us very warm.

A real scientist would set out the raw original data. They would give out the records as to where the original data was collected and what time periods were collected. They would explain how they homogenize and cook the record set. A real scientist would set all this out and DARE the world to find fault with their theories because that is how science advances. A real scientist knows that no science is ever settled.

The so-called ‘climate scientists’ say they lost the raw dataset. They say they have no records as to where the records came from or when it came from. They refuse to relate the methods they have used to cook the data. They have illegally refused FOIA requests for data. They have tried to shut down peer reviewed journals where skeptical scientists have been published. They refuse to show their work. A very tiny group reviews one another’s work and work very hard to deny outsiders access. This is not science. These climate scientists are like stage magicians. When ‘climate scientists’ set their data and methods out for everyone to see and quit hiding behind excuses maybe they have something to prove. But the geologic history of the planet says otherwise.

Or do you Chicken Little alarmists propose that the laws of nature and thermodynamics change from time to time and were different 500 million years ago?

And what then is the optimal climate? Was it during the medieval warm period you have fought so hard to bury? Between 900 and 1300 when Vikings grew wine in Greenland? Or is it now when the planet is significantly cooler? What makes you think you can stop the climate dead and make it never ever change again? It has always changed. There is nothing scary about that.

Wow, you wingnut deniers at least keep me entertained…why don’t YOU “write[sic] some facts to support the failed premise of” climate denial? Good luck because over 99% of scientific papers published over the last 20 years support the science behind climate change. I’ve been waiting for years for a denier to post even one hard scientific paper casting doubt on climate change and it looks like I’ll have to wait even longer…

And if you think scientific journals like Nature, Science and EVERY SINGLE SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION on the PLANET aren’t “real”, then you are completely delusional. Dozens of papers supporting climate change get published in these most prestigious of journals and annals, so you are completely detached from reality in this regard.

Randy Francis, PreamPalver, FlyingPig et al.
Global Warming is climate change. Why quibble on that? It only distracts from the matter at hand:That it’s happening is a scientific consensus; furthermore, it is logical that various gases, CO2, methane, whatnot, will create a greenhouse effect. It is not, nor should it be, a political issue. That you choose not to “believe” makes it sound like belief is the end all and be all of opinions, and that it will create some kind of “truth”. This is childish nonsense. You are free to not to “believe”, but you ought to refrain from pontificating with absurdities.

Human civilization has never had to cope with the extreme climate states of the past that you cherry-picked in a mistaken effort to prove your point. And never in the history of the Earth has their been a singular species that dominates most of the planet’s land, pollutes most of its oceans and digs up millions of years of stored carbon and burns it in the space of a century or two. If you don’t understand how unprecedented human influence on the planet is, then I don’t think you are intellectually prepared to discuss climate change issues. Please read some REAL scientific papers before you make yourself look even more ignorant.

You said, “To unilaterally proclaim that global warming, or the meaningless term “climate change” cannot be disagreed with is the antithesis of what science is all about.” You miss the point entirely. Science is all about finding evidence and constructing a logical explanation that makes sense of the evidence. It is also all about disproving falsehoods and climate change denial is absolutely fasle given the mountain of evidence we have supporting the fact that humans are changing the climate. Denying reality and sticking to ideological beliefs are the REAL “antithesis of what science is all about.”

Ref 32. Salut18
Wow you should get a job at the White House. So let’s see if I can explain this is the simplest terms possible – which is obviously necessary for you. David Brock, the founder and head of Media Matters, describes himself as a “Democratic political activist” and yet you see no bias in that? Wait I get it – there was no terrorist attack in Benghazi-prove it, the IRS never targeted Conservative groups-show the evidence, ATF never allowed guns to walk to Mexican drug cartels – there’s no video showing the ATF loading the weapons into cartel member’s cars, these are not the droids you’re looking for, you don’t have to see out identity papers……. Oh wow you’re a Jedi Knight – you must be the coolest kid in your neighborhood.

The planet temperature has risen less than one degree since 1900. There has been no temperature rise in over 17 years. Nothing that can be measured. You can find that fact in the latest IPCC report. They make excuses and claim airily that it must be hiding somewhere because they cannot find it but they swear it must be somewhere. It is currently nothing more than an article of faith and a couple of completely unsupported wild guesses.

This simple fact, the lack of an increase in temperature in 17 years that has been recognized in the latest IPCC report, disproves all the computer models. None of them predicted a sudden stop in temperature rise. In fact all predictions made from those models have failed to come true. When a theory cannot be used to describe the world then it must be discarded as mere fantasy.

Both Fogged News and several commentors have it wrong:
Anthropogenic climate change is NOT political.

While some corrupt political puppets may pretend that it is, for the benefit of their corrupt funders, who have a vested financial interest in denial, this is merely a reflection of the US endemic political corruption – or should I say enrepic in this case?

I do applaud Mr. Moyers’ effort to put actual science into news somewhere. THere are always ways to make statements of fact or findings. Science censorship by media is a grave mistake imposed upon the people of the USA, although it has not yet caused the deserved failure of those media which impose it.

@IIIrbo – I never denied climate change – maybe reading comprehension classes should be in your future. What I said was that it was called global warming until the science broke down and scientists were no longer able to prove that the earth was warming beyond any normal cyclical change. In fact I believe their own findings were that the average temperature is only 1.5 degrees warmer than it was 100 years ago (keeping in mind of course that measuring devices have become much more accurate and more advanced during that same time period). At that point they had to change their analysis to “climate change” and of course there’s climate change; climate is cyclical (no one disputes that)and cyclical by definition means change. And common sense would demonstrate that CO2 gases will have some impact on the climate, although miniscule. However, the Chicken Littles who whine about the creation of CO2 gases while using their computers which are built with resources while the processes create more CO2 gas = #hypocrisy. If you really are concerned with “global warming” then why aren’t you complaining to the main offenders – Russia, China, and India?

There is no way a scientist in good standing should appear on Fox after being censored that way. The only acceptable solutions are to say, “Take a hike ” or to go on and force-feed the topic into the segment. This is a big, big disappointment for anyone representing SA.

Climate change is not a “settled” issue. We are 12,000 years into our present interglacial and clearly are on the verge of another ice age. Search YouTube on “climate mihran” for four videos showing a comparison of the last five interglacials. Long-term climate is not controllable by mortal humans, it is controlled by the insolation received from the sun, which in turn depends upon very slight changes in the precession and inclination of our planet orbit’s axis and well as in the eccentricity of its orbit. These produce slow changes in temperature– only 1 degree C per thousand years– but in 6000 years my city of Schenectady will be under two miles of ice, as has happened at this location four times in the past 500,000 years.

I think it is sad and very very wrong that Michael Moyer did not stand up to Fox News, and allowed himself to be manipulated by them. Playing into their hands! There will be some viewers who will think: the Editor of Scientific American never mentioned climate change – maybe it’s not that serious after all. And others, myself included who think it was a wasted opportunity. Scientific American is part of the media too, after all, and should have stood up to Rupert Murdoch, as we have been doing rather successfully over the past few years in the UK!

Your political bias has no bearing on a scientific discussion. And whatever personal attack you are making AT ONE GUY at Media Matters does not, in any way, prove that they are biased. Thanks for showing that you are motivated by ideology and political bias instead of by hard evidence. Your continued failure to provide evidence of bias in Media Matters’ reporting shows that facts don’t matter to you.

Fox is doing what it always does in regard to climate change…hide it and hope it will go away. Here in Australia we are saturated with Murdoch media and they do the same thing, or worse and blatantly lie. Considering the huge investment in coal etc that these wealthy investors have they will fight to the end to hide the destruction they are causing. That end may we be our end!

And how are you so certain that CO2 has a “miniscule” impact on climate? If there were no CO2 in the air, Earth’s average temperature would be below freezing. That’s not so “miniscule” to most sane folks. Anyway, what is the climate sensitivity figure you think is most likely and what evidence did you use to decide on that value? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are missing waaaaay too much critical information to be discussin climate science.

We are all “rabid environmentalists”, though many of us do not know that yet. We’ll all be “on board” with the matter, though some, (Like Fox) will fight the trend, because it gores their (imagined) “personal ox”.

Denial of climate change looks lot similar to the persecution Galileo by the Catholic church. But, denial of global warming has more dire consequences for us all, our children and the planet. It is time scientists and media stopped allowing false equivalency in this issue. Most of the global warming denial is coming from oil industry sponsored media or ignorant public. We do not allow politicians or businessmen to define laws of physics or chemistry or biology. Why should we allow few polluters to define climate change debate delaying the crucially needed urgent action towards renewable energy. In 21st century, scientists should not be muzzled by polluting oil industry and their henchmen like Fox news.

I usually don’t respond to other comments at least not directly; however, someone asked a question so I thought I would weigh in on the issue of “what difference can we make?” I too ride my bike to work 9 months out of the year. During the other 3 months (winter), I take public transportation. In the past 6 years I’ve notice a steady increase in cycling traffic during the morning and evening rush hours which is pleasing to see. I also stopped eating meat, most of the food I do eat is raw,I disconnected my natural gas connection, and I sold my two cars a couple years ago. I also plan on installing solar panels in the next two years.

Keep it up buddy, right in the face of a more and more obvious scam, now no longer hidden in statistical black boxes, but with utterly no blade in the input data of the latest Michael Mann “vindicating” hockey stick, for the deeper you did, the bigger will be the backlash when you are on record supporting a fraud:

giantslor: Al Jazeera, the state owned media concern of oil kingdom Qatar gave have a *billion* dollar for tobacco farmer and jet ski owner (on a yacht near a seaside palace) Gore’s near bankrupt little cable TV channel. The cognitive dissonance of your statement is boundless.

-=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. in carbon chemistry (Columbia/Harvard), former Scientific American subscriber of three decades.

All Here Now suggested: “Denial of climate change looks lot similar to the persecution Galileo by the Catholic church.”

(A) Only hockey stick team enthusiasts deny climate change, namely *natural* climate change, and that the vast majority of non-hockey stick temperature reconstructions (as well as *corrected* hockey sticks) demonstrate clear precedent for today’s little warming spike, falsifying claims that it must lie outside of natural variation in both size and slope. Here is one of these in Greenland, the main ice core there: http://s6.postimg.org/zatdndwq9/image.jpg

(B) The Catholic church *was* the consensus “science” of its day and that makes Galileo a *skeptic*. Science is defined by skepticism and the motto of the Royal Society is “Nullius in verba” or “Take nobody’s word for it.”

You fully know these things. So why the propaganda? Because you are a Gorebot, All Here Now. Because you are a propagandist.

How on Earth can *any* of you look at something like the simple world average of tide gauges that is pencil straight immune to any and trend change in our high emissions era and not finally admit to yourselves that this one plot falsifies all claim of climate alarm? The song remains the same, and this is the peer reviewed official plot, taken from the latest 2011 update by Church & White. But note how NASA’s web site CUTS THE RECENT TIDE GAUGE DATA OFF.

Not even the hockey stick team or the IPCC is making your bizarre claim. Note that you must add the 0.8 degree thermometer record onto the end as the hockey stick blade, to compare it, and compare it especially to the dozens of even bigger abrupt warming spikes throughout the last 10K years.

There’s not a damn fact on this page above my comments, any real ones any way. Scientific American has been so terribly dumbed down since my father’s stack of 1960s editions written BY PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS for other scientists instead of by journalists for drug store magazine stands.

I must say it was incredibly nice after digging though all the dross of bickering and insults to actually see one person who has a relevant comment and intelligent point to make! A lot of people don’t seem to understand that denigrating and yelling at others will not convince them of what you are saying and in fact has the opposite effect. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if people who were only slightly apposed to the concept of climate change didn’t leave after reading the comments here more whole heartily against it.

People just don’t seem to consider the fact that their actions will not have an effect that is in line with their real goal. I have made it a point to stop every now and then and ask myself, “what am I really trying to do here?” then I look at what I have been doing and see if it is really having the effect I want.

To often we get caught up in the stepping stone goals that we make up to get to the over all goal, and we don’t stop to reconsider if the effect of accomplishing that lesser goal is actually helping, or even hurting, our real goal.

Do we really want to convince everyone about the truth of climate change, or do we really want to STOP it? Those two things aren’t necessarily the same, though the latter would be easier if the former could be done. If convincing everyone isn’t working, and since we have been at it for decades with only moderate success, I think we can say it’s not working all that great, then we need to try another way of accomplishing the same goal.

Maybe people should start stressing the need to conserve non renewable resources for “our kids and grand-kids”, in case they need it at some point. If it turns out that by “saving” oil and such, it also means a lot less pollution and green house gases than that’s just a lucky accident, no? Likewise we don’t want to conserve endangered species because life is sacred, we want to keep them around because they could someday be a valuable genetic resource. Maybe the green striped snow tortoise will be the means of curing cancer some day, and you don’t want your grand-kids to die of cancer, right? So we had best do all we can to keep that critter alive.

That’s just me throwing out a few possible other angels of attack for getting the same goal, and I’m not all that smart. What all the climate scientists should do is march on mass down to the “soft” science departments of psychology and sociology, and ask these guys and gals to give them a hand.

FOX must be ecstatic about the debate here. They and their mostly scientifically illiterate viewers love treating scientific certainties like climate change as subjects to be talked to death, particularly when those subjects suggest serious life-style changes. I’m still scratching my head wondering how COSMOS landed on FOX and how many in the scientific community have tuned to other channels rather than give FOX the satisfaction of a big audience. Perhaps FOX is trying the old divide-and-conquer scheme. Skepticism is good, but when applied to scientific fact, it becomes just more grist for the media profiteers. Scientists need to present a unified front about climate change. Earth depends on it.

By now you’ve figured out that what a collosal mistake you’ve made. That you’ve managed to upset both sides does not mean you’ve done something right.

If you’re asked to talk top scientific trends, then do so without exclusion. Any “news” program unwilling to allow the freedom of thought that science requires (or specifically discourages it)does not deserve an interview with the editor of any science magazine -especially not the oldest one in the nation.

Fox News has very good local news segments. They are well balanced and fair. The other 22 hours of the day they run only opinion pieces that are moronic at best. It should be required by federal law that opinion be clearly identified by a large disclaimer that states “This is an opinion and not fact.” Yes, that would apply to MSNBC and all iReports as well. It should also be illegal for an opinion/entertainment channel to have the word “news” in the headline.